Obama’s Cynical Immigration Game

Obama’s immigration strategy is to destroy the Republican brand for many election cycles to come. He is less interested in actually passing legislation and more interested in “winning” politically by marginalizing Republicans with Hispanic voters.

Obama will insist on elements of immigration reform that he knows will never pass a Republican House. The bipartisan Senate reform group (lead by Sen. John McCain) announced an outline of a reform package on Monday and President Obama is speaking in Las Vegas today. Already the White House is pushing out reasons that the Senate package doesn’t go far enough.

Republicans need to travel this road carefully. They need to get the messaging right about providing opportunities to those who truly want to be here and lay out the principles of reform and call Obama out on playing politics with immigration reform.

Immigration hard-liners need to take the long view about the position they stake out. To insist on mass deportation (unworkable), will only allow the leftist media to make Republicans a caricature of heartless hicks, and set back Republican opportunities for many election cycles to come.